1994, Soweto, South Africa --- South African police arrest a Zulu man suspected of being a sniper, a few weeks before South Africa's free elections of April 1994. Severe conflicts between the Zulu Inkatha Freedom Party and the African National Congress broke out during preparations for the election --- Image by � David Turnley/CORBIS

Normally non-human animals are discriminated using two reasons as an excuse;A-The fact that non-human animals don’t belong to our specie, implies they don’t deserve equal consideration: According to this we could discriminate human animals (for example) simply because they don’t belong to a certain group (skin colour, gender…) but doing this is wrong (just as discriminating due to specie is) because the group we belong to doesn’t determine our interest *2 in living and avoiding pain.

B-The fact that they lack certain capacities justifies their discrimination:What this argument usually hides is a simple discrimination due to the specie of belonging, because human animals lacking these characteristics are usually considered morally.If this weren’t the case and someone held that our cognitive capacities do determine the respect someone deserves (discriminating as a consequence some human animals such as babies and Alzheimer victims, etc.), the thruth is that if we are affected by suffering and pleasure it is due to our capacity to feel, not because of our intelligence, linguistic capacities etc. (although these can influence on the amount of suffering we experiment, they are not necessary to feel pain and wellbeing).Animals (human and non-human one’s) have interest in life and in not suffering because they are aware of their experiences.

2*-Interests: Any individual with a nervous system and aware of it’s sensations has the capacity to experiment what happens in his/her life, and in consequence has interests that can be discriminated.Those organisms lacking such capacity do not have interests, because they can in no way experiment subjective sensations (there is no “mind” that perceives “things”) and therefore cannot be discriminated morally.

Often humans respect some non-human animals (usually dogs and cats), although they would continue to be speciesist if they didn’t consider equally other animals such as cows, tunas, pigs etc.Although I must add that although many humans do feel empathy for some non-human animals, it is probably adventurous to say they consider them their equals, and a proof of this is that these animals are usually bought, sold...this meaning, used in other ways.

3*Specie: A specie is a taxonomic group used to classify those who share a series of common characteristics. A specie does not have interests, only those who form the species do, and therefore it is these individuals who suffer the consequences of discrimination.

Brazilans in all the country were celebrating today their roots and history.The day has special meaning for Afro-Brazilians, who honor Zumbi as a hero,freedom fighter and a symbol of freedom. Only at São Paulo city, about 12.000 people were protesting against racism and marching to celebrate this day.

This image was made in the Release Day Celebration, at Contagem, Minas Gerais state. It's a piece of a work in progress I'm developing about a strong black community that keep their traditions alive since the days of slavery.